Calhoun County storms damage at least 10 homes, leave over 200 people without power
BANNER, Miss. (WCBI) – The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department says that Wednesday’s severe weather damaged 10 to 12 homes, most of them in the Banner area along Highway 9.
“I could see the tornado,” Banner resident Dobbie Poynor claims. “It was wrapped in the rain and everything and you could see it very clearly…it was huge.”
That’s what Poynor says he saw when he stepped outside his storm shelter Wednesday night.
But everyone in Calhoun County could see the damage left in the storm’s wake Thursday morning.
“When I got out, I noticed that most of my roof was gone,” says Glynn Roane. “My neighbor’s house was torn up and everything, all the trees around here, down.”
“Trees laying on houses,” Poynor says. “There’s a lot of property damage. There’s a trailer right here that looks like part of the end of it has gone out.”
Lantrip Baptist Church also had its awning collapse. The church served as the staging area for Pontotoc Electric Power Association and others involved in the cleanup process.
“We have approximately 230 customers without power at this present time,” Pontotoc Electric general manager Frankie Moorman said Thursday morning. “We have our own crews, plus I called in help from two of our contractors plus a neighboring co-op to come in and help.”
Moorman says that added up to a team of about 85 people. He also said that as of Thursday morning, they had gotten around 23 reports of downed electric poles, a number he expects to go up.
“We’re working as fast and as safely as possible,” he says. “I don’t think we’ll have everybody’s power back on tonight. I’m hoping by the end of tomorrow (Friday) evening that we’ll have power restored here if things go correctly.”
And while no injuries have been reported, residents say the impact of this storm will last much longer than a day.
“Man, you’re looking at a long time to recover,” Poynor says. “We were hit by tornadoes several years ago, like 20 years ago, and it took us a year to get everything back to where it should be and this is worse than that.”
“I don’t have insurance on the house,” Roane says. “But I’ll manage some way.”
Anyone in Calhoun County whose home suffered damage in the storm should submit a report to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
